Wednesday is the first game of the 2026 World Baseball Classic. All seven of the Padres involved left the team over the weekend. Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Wandy Peralta joined the Dominican Republic team for an exhibition in the DR. Xander Bogaerts joined the Netherlands team in Florida for their exhibition against Tampa Bay on Wednesday.
Mason Miller joined the USA team in Arizona for their exhibition against the Rockies on Wednesday. Pitchers Ron Marinaccio and Alek Jacob joined the Italy
team in Arizona for their exhibition against the Angels on Wednesday.
Minor league players for the Padres are also involved in the WBC. RHP Michael Cienfuegos will be with Panama, LHP Omar Cruz and RHP Victor Lizarraga will join Mexico, Carter Loewen joins Canada and RHP Josh Mallitz will be on the Israel team.
The official first game of the Classic will be on Wednesday between Chinese Taipei and Australia in Tokyo. That game will be broadcast on FS1 at 7 p.m. PT. All the other games that day will be the exhibition games between WBC teams and spring teams for their MLB organizations.
Schedule and locations
Here is the link for the full WBC schedule: https://www.mlb.com/world-baseball-classic/schedule/2026-03-03/www.mlb.com
The WBC has four locations with five teams in each location. The tournament is a four-pool round robin with a single-elimination quarterfinal and a semi-final and championship round that will take place in Miami. Pool play will take place March 5-11 with quarterfinals March 13-14. The semi-finals will be March 15-16 and the championship game on March 17.
Team rosters
The information on each team and their rosters can be found here: https://www.mlb.com/world-baseball-classic/teams
The Padres will play Team Great Britain for their exhibition in Peoria on Wednesday and it will be televised on Padres.TV/MLB.TV at 12:10 p.m. PT.
Team USA features a loaded roster that includes Pittsburgh Pirates ace Paul Skenes and Detroit Tigers ace Tarik Skubal as well as Padres closer Mason Miller as their closer.
Padres third baseman Manny Machado is the captain of the Dominican team, an official designation that will be displayed on his uniform for the DR.
Power rankings
MLB.com polled 20 members of their staff to power rank the WBC teams. Over the previous five tournaments, there have only been three countries to win the championship. The Dominican Republic has won once, the USA have won once and Japan has taken the title three times.
Those three teams continue to rank in the top three for the current tournament, with Japan ranked first, the USA second and the DR third.
All games will be carried on Fox channels, including Spanish language game broadcasts. Fox Sports, Fox, FS1, FS2 and Tubi are all carrying games during the tournament. Refer to the schedule for specific games and times. The USA has their first game Friday versus Brazil and that will be on Fox at 5 p.m. PT.
